Re: terminology challenge

[rpresuhn-lists@dorothy.bmc.com]

Hi -

Picking up an old thread, still relevant in light
of recent discussions about hierarchical naming...

> Subject: Re: terminology challenge
> To: Juergen Schoenwaelder <schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de>
> Cc: owner-sming@ops.ietf.org, rpresuhn@dorothy.bmc.com, sming@ops.ietf.org
> Message-ID: <OFE179397F.C0FCE7BE-ON85256B3A.006BFD15@raleigh.ibm.com>
> From: "Robert Moore" <remoore@us.ibm.com>
> Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 15:40:04 -0500
..
> In the Policy model, for example, a Policy Condition can
> have, as its "Existence Superior," either a Policy Rule
> (if it's a rule-specific condition) or a Reusable Policy
> Container (if it's a reusable condition).  We had a very
> hard time expressing this idea in the existing CIM Policy
> model, because Existence scope is hidden in Naming scope,
> and a class can have only one Naming scope.  IF (and it
> really is still a matter of "if") CIM goes to flat naming
> within a Name Space in its next version, I think it will
> need to introduce a formalism for identifying the
> possible Existence scope(s) for a class.  This formalism
> would replace Weak in CIM, and it would correspond to the
> Existence scope aspect of GDMO Name Bindings.  It would
> thus be exactly what you asked about - a formal way of
> indicating (what I see as) the *literal* meaning of the
> metaphorical "contained in" relationship: Existence scope.
..

But, should the specification of the existence scope be
an intrinsic part of the class definition?  If it is, then
the potential for class reuse is artificially limited.
Requiring the class designer to anticipate all possible
environments in which it might be subclassed or otherwise
re-used doesn't seem realistic.  We've had enough cases where
we've needed to add stuff to INDEX clauses in the IETF to
show that even people who've thought long and hard about the
problem won't necessarily get it right.

 ------------------------------------------------------
 Randy Presuhn          BMC Software, Inc.  1-3141
 randy_presuhn@bmc.com  2141 North First Street
 Tel: +1 408 546-1006   San José, California 95131  USA
 ------------------------------------------------------
 My opinions and BMC's are independent variables.
 ------------------------------------------------------